Thursday, March 24, 2016

I tell Charles at the YMCA that I’m bringing Ishmael Reed to
class. He says, “he’s great, an old warrior,” and then adds “where are the
young warriors?” And I understand that lament. So, even in the era of the
youth-led black lives matters movement, that generation gap exists. Some of the
old feel they let down the young, while some feel underappreciated by the
young. Some feel both. Oba T’Shaka makes the connection between the generation
gap and the “integration trap.” Indeed, the "generation gap" was one of the main weapons by which the white
supremacists inserted themselves into the black community as "necessary" (or at
least “unavoidable”) mediators. Ishmael addressed
this in The Preacher and the Rapper,
among other places, back in 1992 (and today there's generation gaps not only between hip-hop and pre-hip-hop, but also within hip-hop).

And Charles and I talk about how the folks at the Pleasant
Grove Baptist Church rally on Adeline Street in response to the noise complaint
also lamented about the lack of young people present (and this is not too
different from the old bluesman complaining that it’s mostly young whites who
care about their music)—even with the strategic alliance with the younger Samba
Funk drummers who were also subject to violent police harassment for playing
drums at Lake Merritt after a white newcomer tried to shut them up (and I think
back to New Orleans Congo Square police actions of lore).

But next time I see Charles, I have to tell him there are
younger warriors; you just don’t hear
about them—and that’s another way the white power structure keeps dividing to
conquer. But I also need to tell Charles about D. Scot Miller
introducing Ishmael, or about Khafre Jay and Malik Diamond coming into my class.
Listening to these non-academic (or trans-academic) public intellectuals talk to my composition
students, I feel my students were roused, minds were blown, by what
they said; seeds were planted. And it’s telling that when they asked my
students if they had ever been to a live hip hop show (or any live music for
that matter), only about 5% said yes. And when they asked my students if any of
them enjoyed public speaking, no one really said yes.

And I know I have to follow-up on this with my students. I
firmly believe that some of my students are better public speakers than they
know they are, or at least could be. Malik and Khafre have had success bringing
this out in people younger than my students, and I believe that part of my
students’ resistance was the simple fact that no one’s really asked them that before, and Malik and Khafre showed
it by doing it.

I personally would love to see Malik and Khafre publish a
book and it would blow away Jay Z’s Decoded
or Russell Simmons' meditation book. Huey and Bobby wrote books, but the book may
not be so necessary to teach the art of public speaking, and the art of
organizing (white culture does have a tendency to overemphasize paper, or these
days, e-paper).

Khafre and Malik have a radio show on KPOO in addition to
their grassroots activist and educational non-profit organization. They
understand the importance of working locally to take back hip hop and music
culture from the corporate industry, and extend the tradition just like the old
personality radio DJS of old--back in the R&B era like DJ Roscoe on KDIA,
or even, say, Sly Stone, before the San Francisco scene turned on him (“I know
how it feels to get demoted. When it comes time you got promoted”) and he had
to go national to make a decent living expressing his artistic vision (Tupac
also felt he had to go to LA, or Too $hort to Atlanta).

Yet, even with the war against local music, and “conscious”
hip hop, as well as the displacement of the black community, Khafre and Malik
are sticking it out, and working locally. They are absolute gifts to the
culture of the Bay Area, but, alas, too little of the Bay Area knows they are
righteously working for, fighting for them. They are warriors for music and the
liberation of black and brown and all oppressed peoples. If they were more
supported economically on their own terms,
they could do more for the revitalization of Oakland’s culture and economy than
any tepid talk of an “arts commission” currently being floated by Oakland’s
mayor or city council.

About Me

7 books of poetry, including Stealer's
Wheel (Hard Press, 1999) and Light As A Fetter (The Argotist UK, 2007). My critical study (with David Rosenthal) of Shakespeare's 12th Night (IDG books)
was published in 2001; more recent prose writings of contemporary media studies
and ethnomusicology have appeared on-line @ Radio Survivor
(http://radiosurvivor.com/2011/06/02/a-history-of-radio-and-content-part-ii-jukeboxes-to-top-40/)
and The Newark Review
(http://web.njit.edu/~newrev/3.0/stroffolino1.html). A recipient of grants from
NYFA & The Fund For Poetry, Stroffolino was Distinguished Poet-in-Residence
at Saint Mary's College from 2001-06, and has since taught at SFAI and Laney
College. As a session musician, Stroffolino worked with Silver Jews, King Khan
& Gris Gris and many others. Always interested in the intersections between
poetry and music, he organized a tribute to Anne Sexton's rock band for The
Poetry Society of America, and joined Greg Ashley to perform the entire Death
Of A Ladies' Man album for Sylvie Simmons' Leonard Cohen biography in 2012.
In 2009, he released, Single-Sided Doubles, an album featuring poems set to
music. In 2016, Boog City published a play:AnTi-GeNtRiFiCaTiOn WaR dRuM rAdIo. Stroffolino currently teaches creative writing and critical thinking at Laney College